(Newser)
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The FBI is offering up to $1 million for information leading to the return of former special agent Robert Levinson, a 63-year-old who vanished in Iran five years ago while working as a private investigator probing cigarette smuggling, the Guardian reports. A video of Levinson pleading for help from the US government, in which he says a group has been holding him for years, surfaced late last year.

An FBI assistant director says investigators believe Levinson is being held in the border region Iran shares with Afghanistan and Pakistan. Emails sent to the former agent's wife and seven children containing photos of him in an orange prison uniform are believed to have been sent from Afghanistan or Pakistan. More than 100 current and former FBI agents stood on the steps of the agency's Washington, DC, office yesterday in a show of support for Levinson, reports MSNBC.

While sorry for him, I have to ask whether or not he was an agent at the time of his disappearance? It says he was working as a private investigator probing cigarette smuggling, yet the FBI is offering a million dollars? Doesn't sound right to me.